Originally Posted by
Frobisher
So, I work at a college in North Carolina. I just took on a new position, and while I didn't realize this when I was just teaching, now that I have administrative duties, I have found that all of the higher-ups, from the President to the Deans, are absolutely terrified of SACS.
We have our visit (every so many years, five or ten I think, every college gets a full SACS review/inspection) coming up next year, and in the past two months alone, we have instituted seemingly dozens of minor corrective policies - many simply precautionary, such as adjusting how many sections in our department are taught by adjunct faculty, so as to present a favorable ratio. It's all part of an in-house cleansing (of what was already a fairly clean house). Some have made our jobs considerably more difficult, but no one says peep, for SACS is like the eye of Sauron; it sees all. If we found something as severe as the AA program issues here, I think we would just collectively sigh, close down the college, and start over, for fear of what they could potentially do to us.
Honestly, I don't know if the fear is justified, but I have yet to encounter anyone at my level or above who isn't already anxious about the review. But I get the feeling that they have more power than the NCAA in this instance, at least in the sense that SACS is genuinely concerned with how a school is run, or at least it purports itself to be.